Please sign the petition below to remove the statue of Jefferson Davis currently in Kentucky’s Capitol Rotunda, and replace it with a tribute to Muhammad Ali, “the Louisville Lip” and “the Greatest of All Time.”
I just heard from the Ali family: It is the Champ’s belief that Islam prohibits three-dimensional representations of living Muslims. Accordingly, I have adjusted the petition to call for a two-dimensional representation of Ali (a portrait, picture or mural) in lieu of a statue.
UPDATE (Tuesday, December 2, 2014)
In this interview with WHAS-TV’s Joe Arnold, Governor Steve Beshear endorses the idea of honoring Muhammad Ali in the State Capitol (although he disagrees with removing Davis). Arnold explores the idea further on his weekly show, “The Powers that Be.”
Click here to check out WDRB-TV’s Lawrence Smith’s coverage of the story.
And here’s my op-ed in Ali’s hometown paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal.
UPDATE (Saturday, June 4, 2016)
In the wake of the 2015 Charlestown tragedy, in which a Confederate flag-waving murderer united the nation against racism, all of the most powerful Kentucky policymakers — U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, Governor Matt Bevin, Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker Greg Stumbo — called for the removal of the Davis statue from the Rotunda. Today, as we commemorate last night’s passing of Muhammad Ali, there is no better moment to replace the symbol of Kentucky’s worst era with a tribute to The Greatest of All Time.
UPDATE (Wednesday, June 8, 2016):
Great piece by Lawrence Smith of WDRB-TV in Louisville on the petition drive to replace Jefferson Davis’ statue in the Capitol Rotunda with a tribute to Muhammad Ali.
UPDATE (Thursday, June 9, 2016):
Excellent piece on the petition drive by Jack Brammer that was featured on the front page of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Highlight of the article:
Miller said he has received a few “angry comments” on his call to honor Ali.
“One of them encouraged me to kill myself,” he said. “You can quote me that I have decided not to take their advice.”
UPDATE (Friday, June 10, 2016)
The petition drives continues to show the Big Mo(hammed): check out these stories from WKYU-FM public radio in Bowling Green and WKYT-TV, Channel 27 in Lexington:
UPDATE (Saturday, June 11, 2016):
Still not convinced? Check out this excerpt from today’s New York Times:
Father’s Day celebrates the men who did their part. Not just biological dads, but those men who stuck around to see the job done proper.
For those of us whose fathers didn’t stick around, it is a day to wonder what our lives would have been like had they not gone away-gone away through death or divorce or an unquenchable wanderlust or just because they had no intention of being a father and excused themselves from the job.
My father went away six weeks after I was born. I only know him through family stories and my mother’s recollections. The older she got, the more those recollections took on the shape of a paperback romance. I know the bare facts. He was from Kentucky. She was from New Jersey. She knew he was dying when they met.
They married anyway. He died less than a year later, the day after her thirty first birthday. I can see her in my mind’s eye, with a baby in her arms, accepting his flag from the soldiers who came to conduct his funeral.
My dad was not one of the men who died on the Normandy Beach or slogging up the Anzio Road. He served on a ship in the Pacific Theatre. He came home, wounded so badly that he spent the rest of his short life in and out of veteran’s hospitals. He met my mother in one of those hospitals. They married when he was 25. He died at 26.
My dad wasn’t around for my first communion or my first words or any of my graduation ceremonies. He was there for me in pictures – a lanky man with a shock of black curly hair falling into his eyes dressed in sailor whites, with hands tucked in his navy pea jacket. He was there for me in stories told by his sister, my aunt, of the crazy things he did as a teenager, the cars he loved, the girls he dated, the things he enjoyed before he left Coalport Holler forever to go to war.
He bought my mom a house through the GI bill and sent me to college with his veteran education benefits. He wasn’t there to do it himself. But I like to think he approved.
My husband, Ivan, and I went to my father’s home in Knox County last weekend. We rode around Barbourville and went out to Dr. Thomas Walker State Park.
Then we drove through the town cemetery. I haven’t been there since I was a child. My mother loathed visiting his grave. She always said he wasn’t in that grave; it was just the place to put his body. So, my memories date from when my aunt would come from Detroit and take me with her to “decorate the grave”.
We walked the sections until we came upon his head and foot stones. They were as neat and beautiful as I remember them.
Father’s Day 2009 is special to me this year. I found my dad.
Happy Father’s Day and blessings to those fathers who could and did stick around.
By David Snyder, on Sun Jun 19, 2011 at 3:00 PM ET
Four generations of Snyder men; the author at far left, his father at far right
My Dad, now there’s a tough one. Not that it’s tough to talk about my Dad, but rather the man himself. The kind of Dad who could give you that look when you were a kid, the one that needed no words to get across what he meant – the same look I think I now give my kids, intentionally or unaware. I have found as I’ve gotten older that, although my appearance has clearly swayed toward my Mom’s side, my personality and character have come from my Dad. I notice more and more as each year passes by. I even followed in his footsteps professionally, although my career has changed, while his has remained the same.
My Dad was born in small town Ohio to a lifelong worker at Anchor Hocking in Lancaster. And if I think my Dad is tough – he’s got nothing on my Grandfather, who was so tough, he lived until he was 101 years old. It seems that the women in our lives have the tendency to soften their men. My Grandmother was a wonderful woman and she did the best she could. My Mom, herself a wonderful woman, has clearly had an impact on my Dad (one for which her children are grateful), and I most definitely see that my wife has done the same for me. That toughness, the stubbornness, the steely exterior seems to ease with each generation. Our wives may disagree, but I think it is true.
My Dad found his way to Ohio State, where he met my Mom, and then to law school at the University of Cincinnati. Graduated in 1964 and has been practicing law ever since. Still today, he makes his way to the office a few times a week, although he’d rather be spending time with his grandchildren, which he does whenever he can. His legal career has been marked by two stages. First, as a founding member of a small law firm for 20 years and for the past 26 years, with a successful solo practice, working as an old school General Practitioner (and there aren’t many of them left around). You name it, if it’s not Criminal or Divorce, and he can help you out. His law practice is marked by his integrity, his honesty, his hard work and his willingness to do what needs to get done (never doing it half-assed, as we heard growing up as kids in my family). I never heard anyone ever talk badly or critically about my Dad’s law practice. He just did good solid work, the kind his clients needed.
I never realized until my adult life, how hard my Dad worked. When you grow up not wanting for anything, you don’t always see the hard work, but looking at where my parents are today, I know what it must have took to get there. That has always amazed me, because he went about his job without much fanfare. Just a humble practice in support of his family. And it wasn’t just work – my Dad spent many hours, weeks, doing service outside of his career. Just to mention a few, years and years on our Temple Board of Trustees, including a term as President of the congregation, President of the Cincinnati Reform Jewish High School – a joint project by the 4 Reform Jewish congregations in Cincinnati – one of the first of its kind in the country back when it started in the early 1980’s, and free legal services for local law enforcement. And through all of this, he set a model for how to blend career, family and service together, one that I try to emulate as best I can.
Now I said my Dad was tough, but that’s just on the outside – really deep down he has compassion and kindness and this incredible desire to provide for his family. Whenever there was a need growing up or even as adults, Dad is there to help (and my brothers would most certainly agree). And having grandchildren has really softened him up. There is nothing he would rather do today than spend time with his 6 grandchildren. If they want it, he provides. And I mean it – from riding roller coasters to various sports venues, to simple babysitting – he does it all. Really no different than when I was a kid growing up, but now I can see it through a parent’s eyes and truly appreciate it.
Of course, no praise of my Dad can be made without mention of my Mom. As I mentioned, the women in the lives of Snyder men must have some magical power to deal with the tough, stubborn side that we all exhibit. Not an easy task, one at which my Mom has excelled. She definitely has earned some of the credit for what is written above.
So on this Father’s day, I can offer this simple tribute, to a man who has never sought the limelight, never asked for praise, and never required anything in return. We can all use a little of that humility, that example of a how to do a hard day’s work, that deep sense of pride in family. My Dad, now there’s a tough one – but I know otherwise.
To my Dad, Richard Snyder – go out to the links and shoot your age! Happy Father’s Day – I love you.
“Take care of Number One. Nobody’s going to do it for you.”
“You need to know a lot of people. Make friends everywhere you go.”
Sam and Carol Andrews (with Trixie lurking at bottom)
These were prime pieces of advice from Dad. I heard them most every day until he died. On the first, I haven’t always done so well. On the second, I’ve been fortunate, mostly because of a career in politics.
Dad was political. He was bipartisan. He taught my three brothers and me to be bipartisan, though we haven’t stayed that way. They went fairly right; I veered left.
My first political campaign was working the polls on Election Day for one of Dad’s candidates, a Democrat. I handed out matchbooks with the candidate’s name on it. I was very young. The candidate was the beloved incumbent state senator from Lebanon, Tennessee, Bill Baird. He won.
A farmer and a World War II veteran who was passionate about politics – not for their blood sport but for their good – Dad believed that everybody should damned well exercise the privilege of participating in the process, whether their views were left, right, center, up or down, or they should just get the hell out of the way. He was right.
Twenty-six years have passed since Dad left this Earth. He wouldn’t get it that fewer people exercise this privilege or why people wouldn’t want to be political.
When I sat down to write this, I Intended to go into some detail about my father and me, but after some effort, I realized how difficult it is to sum up a 53 year relationship with one’s father in the amount of time we have here today, so I will keep it brief.
Being his son was not easy. He was not a hugger or a warm and fuzzy guy, and by the time I came along, he had little patience for kids. He made a sincere effort at times, but you could tell that he was not comfortable in the role of dad.
And to add to the strain, he held his children up to the same impossible standards he held himself up to. With such lofty standards, failure and disappointment were inevitable for him and for us. So our relationship during my childhood and young adulthood was like many a father and son – Polite but strained on the surface, with an undercurrent of hurt, resentment and disappointment on both sides.
At the same time, he provided a wonderful home for us and many priceless childhood experiences and memories, and for these I will always be grateful.
Again, like many sons, I disagreed with many of the decisions he made in regards to family matters, but as I grew into adulthood and had to make tough decisions of my own, I gained a greater appreciation for the difficulties he faced, and was able to let go of and forgive many, and finally all of the resentments I held for his choices and shortcomings as a father. More importantly, I came to recognize my own shortcomings and challenges, which made me a more compassionate person.
At the same time, he was mellowing with age and was able to put aside his judgments about my choices and shortcomings, so we were able to find some common ground and forge a closer relationship as we grew older. In the end, I was able to communicate everything I needed to communicate with him, and felt complete when I heard the news of his death.
Now about the man himself – He was the full manifestation of a human being it all its extremes – from the highest talents and ideals to the most common failings, and everything in between. He was all of us, only bigger than life and with the courage of his convictions whether he was in the right or wrong, which made him a difficult person at times, but always a fascinating case study in humanity.
He went for it in life, and you always want to pull for someone like that and celebrate his successes, but it hurts all the more when they come up short – both for the person and for those who love him.
My dad was a lover – While he had difficulty expressing his love for others, his love came pouring out in other ways – In his striving for integrity and high ethical standards; In his passion for his work and a job done well; In his devotion to the institutions that he loved. Ironically, I feel that his love maybe showed itself most vividly in his drinking – He desperately wanted to feel things and connect with people, but it was just too difficult for him when he was sober, so he drank … and drank … and drank.
In the end I know 1 thing about my dad – He loved me the best way he knew how and he did the best he could by me in this life.
On Father’s Day when I was growing up, my Dad would play golf with some friends, do some work around the house and sit down me, my mother, brother and two sisters for dinner. Dinner usually consisted of standing rib roast, mashed potatoes and peas or string beans and, of course, iced tea. Dad would talk about golf which bored my mother and two sisters to pieces. My brother, still a mid-seventies golfer today, loved the golf gab.
The calm, normal family event on Father’s Days in the fifties and sixties contrasted greatly with Father’s Days my Dad spent in 1943-1945 when aboard a Coast Guard destroyer escort in the Atlantic. The Father’s Days of 43 and 44 reflect my father commanding his ship across the Atlantic on convoy protection duty.
June, 1945, the war in Europe ended and my father’s ship navigated the Panama Canal and headed for the North Pacific and the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. I was three that summer. By the time I was ten or so and gained some appreciation, my Dad’s pleasures were simple. He cut grass, fixed things that broke, taught me how to camp put in a pup tent and went to work. I do not recall the gifts we gave him, probably neck ties or a tool, but I do remember the dinners. The golf talk and the standing rib stand out, but so does my father, a dignified Coast Guard commander who passed away in 1998.
I grew up as a gay boy knowing this and knowing that my hair somehow did not deserve this atrocity. Seven years old is when I first, really, knew. Wanting to “grow my hair out” was NEVER an option.
This was 1969 and the only boys who had the Hair of Dreams did not have Barber Dads. They had Moms who would bring them in and have their “bangs trimmed”. Boys, mind you.
Bangs. Trimmed. Jealous. Angels. Jesus.
They would come into his northern KY barber shop with their beautiful hair
and I would be sweeping up after their gorgeous locks and wanting to save it. Savor it.
Not me. I had a buzz cut. Like a son of a chef who eats, not the lasagna served at the restaurant that evening, but whatever. Because, well, that’s what I do for a living and not for you. I’m tired.
My dad was awesome in so many ways, but not in Hair Ways.
I found some redemption and solace last week. I needed a hair cut, and tired of the whole Lexington Hair Scene (which I respect, no offense intended, Hair Gays), I decided , on a major South Broadway Starbucks mocha buzz to do something fiercely freeing.
I used the iPhone to search for “Barber” and ended up at Image Barbershop on Waller. 8am. They open at 7am. THAT, friends, is a Barber Shop.
Sat in The Chair. His tender care was immediately my Father. Gentle.
Closed my eyes and completely relaxed.
Then, in a moment of It Can’t Get Any Better Than This, it got: Better.
He steamed hot lather on my neck. And used an honest to Dad straight razor. And used talcum. Turned me around to look in the mirror and said, “How’s that?”
I have not felt that beautiful in a very long time.
By Loranne Ausley, on Sun Jun 19, 2011 at 1:15 PM ET
My dad, DuBose “Duby” Ausley, taught me everything I know about public service – he taught us, by example, the importance of serving your community, your family and your God with enthusiasm and integrity.
Although he has never held political office, he has been a quiet and effective leader his entire life. He was a Captain in the US Army, appointed by Presidents and Governors to serve in very important capacities, has had successful simultaneous careers in law and banking, and is still practicing law today.
Most recently, he served as one of the most important members of my team in our campaign for statewide office. While our efforts were not successful, it was a precious gift for a 47 year old daughter to be able to spend quality time working side by side with her 74 year old dad – still leading by example.
My father was the oldest of nine living children when I was born. James
Dillon Mansfield had gone through the depression, worked at the Great
Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P) in high school, served in the
United States Army Air Corps during World War II where he was a desk sergeant, married literally the girl next door during the war, and eventually landed a job in their hometown of Ashland, Kentucky at Ashland Oil as a laborer. He was gradually promoted and ended up in management as a shift foreman, in charge of an entire refinery where he remained employed until he retired at age 62.
My oldest memories of him, include his being the disciplinarian in the
family, and one who spent a lot of time working when others would have
rested. He wasn’t afraid to use the “hickory stick” of which the song
speaks: “Reading and writing and arrhythmic, taught to the tune of a
hickory stick.” I remember hearing, “Just wait until your father gets
home” more than once. Since I was the one in the family most likely to
ignore rules I was also the one most likely to endure corporal
punishment. My Grandmother, though, said my parents were just learning
how to discipline through me rather than that I was too often the brat
in the family.
My absolute first memory of my father was when I was being “Mike” at
about age 5 and experimenting with the cigarette lighter my Uncle Bus
left behind after a visit. I managed to get my Uncle’s Zippo lit, then
set fire to the curtains, which set fire to the painted ceiling in my
“dormer-style” bedroom. It was then I realized I better tell on myself
and screamed for help. My father and mother both came upstairs; and one
of them tore the curtains down and stomped the fire out. Daddy realized
he had a quick way of putting out the fire. The bathroom was on the
other side of the room; and we had one of those rubber-hosed shower
heads for rinsing hair while taking a bath. While my Mom held it onto
the tub spigot, he pulled it as far into the bedroom as possible with
the water going full force. Somehow it reached far enough (probably
10-15 feet) to put out the fire! You don’t forget that kind of excitement.
As I said before, my father was a disciplinarian; but I do not remember
any punishment for setting that fire, what was probably the worst things
I did as a child or teen. I believe he had the wisdom to know I had been
punished enough by the immense fear this had caused me. It is possible I
was given some kind of corporal punishment or banished from play or
something else; but, if so, I have no memory of it but only of the fire
and my Dad’s quick action to save us and the house.
Another important thing about my Father was how much he knew about so
many things. This might not have been a special thing among his peers of
that; but I never knew anyone else who could do so many things so well.
He built the home in which I spent years 6-20. When I say he built it
literally. He dug the trench for the footer, mixed the concrete and
poured it, laid the block on which the frame was placed, put on the
siding, installed the windows and doors, laid the flooring, put in the
furnace and water heater, wired the entire home, and roofed it. He only
had help in two ways: Friends and family members helped raise the frame
since doing that as an individual would be very difficult or impossible.
Those friends and family would occasionally come just to help with
whatever he was doing that day, too. He hired someone to plaster the
inside walls and ceiling. He could weld, solder, work with electricity,
fix the car, and more things than I can remember.
He was not affectionate in a physical manner; but it would have been
difficult to deny that his love was there for the five of us and our
mother. As he got older he became a more demonstrative; but it was
difficult for him, just as it was once difficult for me.
One of the most dramatic memories I have of my father begins with the
arguments we would have about the War in Vietnam. We could never agree;
but the war eventually ended. Many years later, with no lead up, my
Father turned to me and said, “Mike, I was wrong about Vietnam.” It
wasn’t easy for him to admit when he was wrong; but this was far beyond
any usual disagreements we might have. This had to do with what the core
of the United States was about and even when a veteran would have to say
about that particular war. Later on Robert McNamara confirmed what we
both eventually believed about Vietnam.
I had a great mother. Perhaps I’ll get the chance to write about her on
a Mother’s Day in the future; but my Father had an awful lot to do with
the person I became, working hard, not giving up, and staying married
now forty-six years, almost as long as he and my Mother.
By Jonathan Miller, on Sun Jun 19, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
My dad and I circa 1968
This piece — in which the RP honored his father and contributing RP Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s father — first appeared at The Recovering Politician on April 4, 2011. We re-run it today.
Today — as on every April 4 — as the nation commemorates the anniversary of one of the worst days in our history; as some of us celebrate the anniversary of the greatest speech of the 20th Century; my mind is on my father. And my memory focuses on a winter day in the mid 1970s, sitting shotgun in his tiny, tinny, navy blue Pinto.
I can still remember my father’s smile that day.
He didn’t smile that often. His usual expression was somber, serious—squinting toward some imperceptible horizon. He was famously perpetually lost in thought: an all-consuming inner debate, an hourly wrestling match between intellect and emotion. When he did occasion a smile, it was almost always of the taut, pursed “Nice to see you” variety.
But on occasion, his lips would part wide, his green eyes would dance in an energetic mix of chutzpah and child-like glee. Usually, it was because of something my sister or I had said or done.
But this day, this was a smile of self-contented pride. Through the smoky haze of my breath floating in the cold, dense air, I could see my father beaming from the driver’s seat, pointing at the AM radio, whispering words of deep satisfaction with a slow and steady nod of his head and that unfamiliar wide-open smile: “That’s my line…Yep, I wrote that one too…They’re using all my best ones.”
He preempted my typically hyper-curious question-and-answer session with a way-out-of-character boast: The new mayor had asked him—my dad!—to help pen his first, inaugural address. And my hero had drafted all of the lines that the radio was replaying.
This was about the time when our father-son chats had drifted from the Reds and the Wildcats to politics and doing what was right. My dad was never going to run for office. Perhaps he knew that a liberal Jew couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in 1970s Kentucky. But I think it was more because he was less interested in the performance of politics than in its preparation. Just as Degas focused on his dancers before and after they went on stage—the stretching, the yawning, the meditation—my father loved to study, and better yet, help prepare, the ingredients of a masterful political oration: A fistful of prose; a pinch of poetry; a smidgen of hyperbole; a dollop of humor; a dash of grace. When properly mixed, such words could propel a campaign, lance an enemy, or best yet, inspire a public to wrest itself from apathetic lethargy and change the world.
Now, for the first time, I realized that my father was in the middle of the action. And I was so damn proud.
– – –
Click above to watch my eulogy for my father
My dad’s passion for words struck me most clearly when I prepared his eulogy. For the past two years of his illness, I’d finally become acquainted with the real Robert Miller, stripped down of the mythology, taken off my childhood pedestal. And I was able to love the real human being more genuinely than ever before. The eulogy would be my final payment in return for his decades of one-sided devotion: Using the craft he had lovingly and laboriously helped me develop, I would weave prose and poetry, the Bible and Shakespeare, anecdotes and memories, to honor my fallen hero. In his final weeks of consciousness, he turned down my offer to share the speech with him. I will never know whether that was due to his refusal to acknowledge the inevitable, or his final act of passing the torch: The student was now the author.
While the final draft reflected many varied influences, ranging from the Rabbis to the Boss (Springsteen), the words were my own. Except for one passage in which I quoted my father’s favorite memorial tribute: read by Senator Edward Kennedy at his brother, Robert’s funeral:
My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Read the rest of… The RP: My Dad, RFK & the Greatest Speech of the Past Century
By Greg Harris, on Sun Jun 19, 2011 at 11:30 AM ET
I idolized my father growing up. I used to take friends up to his study to show them pictures from his old almanacs of his playing days in high school and college sports and brag about his athleticism. I bragged about him a lot as a kid, and still try to emulate him as an adult.
My dad took his profession very seriously, and it was really mom who played the more “hands-on” role growing up. Dad’s paternal example, my grandfather, was a tough Texas railroad man who was often on the road. In that generation, parents didn’t exactly “play” with their kids. My dad carried that tradition (albeit to a lesser extent). Indeed, I remember many days he’d come home from work for dinner, only to return to work after dinner.
But this was hardly a Harry Chapinesque “Cats in the Cradle” scenario—indeed, I always felt my dad was there for me and enjoyed me as a son. As busy as he was, I also never took for granted our bonding times—going to the local college’s basketball games (for which we had season tickets), the occasional Cubs game, the 20 hour drives to Texas to visit our kin, and the boxing. He taught me “the science of boxing,” and in my pre-teens we’d have periodic boxing matches in our family room when he’d don the gloves he brought me, sit at the end of the couch and let me come at him full speed while he’d lob soft “punches” in return. When I bobbed, weaved and got in a good punch, he’d fall backwards and feign like I knocked him out.
Strangely enough, my father became a far more hands-on parent in my adulthood. When I first ran for political office in 2002, my dad would literally commute from my South-of-Chicago hometown to Cincinnati every week to help with my congressional campaign. I was an unknown non-profit director at the time running against a very powerful incumbent. I got my butt kicked, but the consolation prize was the incredible “everyday” time I had with my father driving to church festivals and other campaign events. Many in Cincinnati’s political circles came to know my dad as a fixture on the campaign trail. Indeed in 2004, when I ran for congress a second time, my dad repeated the same ritual . . . commuting several hours each week to help out. By then, most politicos knew him, and it was more like a homecoming. That was a fun, spirited campaign in an intense presidential election year. But I was still very much the underdog, and when you are an underdog you often find yourself working like mad to win a race that no one thinks you can win, and often are met with ridicule by patronizing reporters and dismissive campaign donors that seem to take you less seriously for even trying. In those trying circumstances, having love and unconditional support in your corner is a God-send.
It was a bit off seeing a father who I looked up to my entire life undertake the role of a humble campaign worker . . . helping me with candidate surveys, marching in parades, handing out collateral at festivals . . . event after event. I remember vividly the day we were sitting side by side at computers in the campaign office when he suddenly announced “Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash.” (I am a graduate of Camp Wellstone, the late senator’s campaign organizing school.) I never got to win an election and taste victory with my father, which is one of my deep regrets, although I know he is no less proud of me.
I now have two sons, and so grateful they have the chance to interact with and get to know my father. He’s their “poppa.” He taught my 8-year old son Nathan last summer how to throw a spiral, and starred on stage for a community production of a Christmas Carol, which was my son’s first play.
I was blessed with two exceptional parents, but today is the day I pay tribute to my father. I firmly believe that every day I go about my work with conviction and integrity and stay true to my values is a day I’m befitting of his example. Next month I will turn 40, and very much hope that when my young sons are my age, they look back at me with a similar reverence for their old man.
My parents are the reason I have the courage to do what’s right, and have made this recovering politician feel like a winner even in defeat.
Blog this!
